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Randy Holloway at Microsoft

Blogging from the field.
Office Server Products

I'm back from a LONG hiatus- I hope I still have a reader or two left.

So I read an article from Mary Jo on Office Servers. While I won't comment on unreleased products in a specific way, I wonder what people think of these concepts. For example, how would you use an Excel Server product? Are there things that you'd use the Excel Server for that you couldn't do with Analysis Services? How about an InfoPath-based server product? Why would you use this over SharePoint with a repository for InfoPath forms and saved documents? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these concepts and to understand how you might use these products. Also, any suggestions on these products would be appreciated.

Posted: Sunday, October 17, 2004 8:39 PM by RandyHolloway

Comments

David Yack said:

Missing from that discussion is a PowerPoint Server offering. This is an area that has been negleted by VSTO and will probably continue to be neglected in the future but would allow building some really helpful business presentation builders.

Just my 2 cents...
# October 17, 2004 10:48 PM

Lawrence Liu said:

Why develop an "Excel Server" product when there's already one <a href="http://officewriter.softartisans.com/officewriter-37.aspx>available</a> from SoftArtisans? :-) They also have a "Word Server" product.
# October 18, 2004 5:14 AM

James Risto said:

Going out on a (perhaps) different limb here ... what about the idea that the "office product" is ONLY on the server, with a thin smart client "viewer" on the desktop (I did not say browser-based)? I am in corporate land here, and a 1-directory/few-files XCOPY-install has potential to reduce Office support greatly.
# October 18, 2004 7:53 AM

Jody said:

An InfoPath server would be interesting if it supported both a central forms repository and a ASP.NET read/write form renderer. This would open up the benefit of InfoPath to a broader range of users.
# October 18, 2004 8:33 AM

Randy H. said:

Lawrence- thanks for the link to the SoftArtisans product. I had not seen that, although I think the scope of that product would be more limited than what we might implement. That to me seems to be more of a developer toolset rather than a full-fledged server.
# October 19, 2004 7:21 PM

Randy H. said:

Jody- why not use SharePoint as the platform for InfoPath? People are already using WSS and InfoPath in the manner than you describe, with limited development/customization.
# October 19, 2004 7:21 PM

Randy Holloway at Microsoft Office Server Products | unemployment office said:

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# June 16, 2009 3:55 AM
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